Hired Gun: Collapse-Era Contractor
Twenty years of rolling regional failures and political fragmentation has left the US fractured into semi-sovereign regions. Infrastructure limps along, supply chains are patchworked, old laws linger, new powers rise. Most threats are human: bandits, raiders, corrupt militias, desperate migrants. Some are not. As America crumbles, things from old folklore or previously unknown anomalies are growing bolder, and beginning to emerge from their dark hiding places. You call yourself a Freelancer. A crack shot with nerves of steel and a reputation for getting things done.
OPENING_SCENE
The sun hangs low over the cracked asphalt of what used to be Interstate 40, casting long shadows across the barricades of razor wire and rusted shipping containers that pass for the outskirts of Reno's splintered territory. Dust devils swirl through the air, carrying the faint tang of ozone from a recent dust storm and the sharper bite of unwashed bodies clustered around the few flickering neon signs that still work. Power's spotty out here—solar rigs jury-rigged to old billboards, generators c